Community Centre, 4B Drum Street, Gilmerton, Edinburgh

This community centre, located at 4B Drum Street, Gilmerton, Edinburgh, was originally built in 1912 as the Gilmerton Board School by J Inch Morrison. It is a two-storey building designed in the Free Renaissance style, exhibiting a symmetrical layout with a central, piended block and lower, three-storey wings.

The front facade, facing Gilmerton Road, is constructed of polished ashlar, set upon a broad, coursed base of bull-faced ashlar which rises to the window sills at ground floor. A moulded ashlar band runs across the first floor. The wings are finished with harl above a similar bull-faced base, and feature polished ashlar dressings and quoins. The cornice continues around the sides of the building.

The central block has eight bays and a piended roof. The outer bays are advanced forward in square bays, rising through two floors and terminating with a cornice and blocking course. These bays originally provided separate entrances for boys and girls, each with steps; a disabled ramp is now located to the left of the entrance. Segmentally arched doorways, with moulded surrounds, keystones, panelled double doors, and bipartite windows above, serve the ground and first floors respectively. Tall windows are positioned within the remaining bays, with the second and fifth bays wider, containing bipartites on both floors and breaking the eaves with round-headed pediments incorporating ventilator slits. Sash and case windows are fitted throughout, with 8, 12, and 18-pane glazing patterns.

The recessed, T-plan wings flanking the central block have three-bay front elevations with windows on the ground, first, and second floors, using a 4-pane glazing pattern.

The north and south elevations feature two-storey, advanced four-bay blocks towards the rear. A central bipartite window on each floor breaks the eaves within a gabled dormerhead, each incorporating a ventilator slit. The recessed wing projecting towards the front has an irregular arrangement of openings, including five ground-floor windows, and tripartite and single windows on the first and second floors.

The rear elevation displays grouped windows at ground and first floor levels, with two tall bipartites breaking the eaves in piend-roofed dormerheads. The outer wings are blank and piended.

The roofs are covered with red roof tiles, and there are two harled stacks with ashlar quoins, a freize, and cornice, topped with tall cans. A prominent, central belfry is octagonal, with lead flashings, Doric columns, a frieze, cornice, a leaded dome, and a pinnacle.

The interior was not inspected during a 1995 survey.

Low-coursed rubble boundary walls, topped with railings along Gilmerton Road, enclose the property, and a similar wall runs along Newtoft Street.